Renovating the old Fort Hill Building is just the start of building a technology campus, with four separate data facilities planned on an 8-acre site.

SH Data Technologies plans to gut and refurbish the existing building at 901 E. Summit Hill Ave. to provide 33,000 square feet of commercial office space, said Frank Hutchison, president of SH Data Technologies. The building has been empty for several years. SH Data Technologies bought it in 2014.

But that’s only a prelude to the main project: a high-end data center, dubbed “The Fort,” offering better hosting and data protection for business and government customers than is available anywhere else in the region. The first building of the planned complex will go up next to the old Fort Hill Building, Hutchison said

“Our hope and expectation is that the data center opens in July 2018,” he said. The existing building couldn’t structurally handle a data center, but will provide some office space for SH Data Technologies, Hutchison said.

This first phase is expected to cost about $10 million, he said. The first stage of the data center project will likely take $24 million in private investment, according to a Knoxville City Council resolution.

That resolution, unanimously approved Aug. 1, aids the development with a five-year payment in lieu of taxes valued at $2.3 million. The agreement covers city and county property taxes, according to Jesse Mayshark, senior director of communications and government relations for Knoxville.

The data center will need lots of reliable power, and Knoxville Utilities Board is providing two separate feeds, Hutchison said.

The utility’s program of infrastructure improvements, including automated switching, increases reliability to the site, KUB spokeswoman Stephanie Midgett said via email.

“KUB engineers have been working closely with SH Data to ensure our system will be able to meet their needs and to plan for connections to our system; fortunately, their site is located at the intersection of multiple electric circuits from different substations, providing high levels of redundancy and reliability,” she wrote. “The projected loads for the new center can be supported without the need for any new substations.”

Knoxville already has data centers, but only smaller ones — “Tier 1” and “Tier 2.” SH Data Technologies plans a “Tier 3” data center as the first new facility in a three-stage project that will ultimately require 50,000 square feet, according to the city resolution.

It’s expected to need 12 to 15 employees to start, but Hutchison said it will probably involve 45 to 50 hires over the next few years.

“The real benefit to the community is the intangible side of it,” he said. A Tier 3 data center should attract new businesses and keep local companies here instead of sending them to Atlanta or Chicago for similar service, Hutchison said. SH Data Technologies is working with the Knoxville Chamber to market the data center, he said.

Companies that rely on systems or data to always be available need a safe host for backup; events like the November 2016 wildfire in Sevier County could destroy a business if all its information was stored on site, Hutchison said.

“That’s what The Fort is all about,” he said. “All of the pieces are in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

A groundbreaking ceremony at the Fort Hill Building is scheduled for 4 p.m. Jan. 29, with Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett expected to be there.